


Bleed Out Ink

by unsettled



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 08:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't remember what it is that prompted him the first time, that guided him to sit down set pen to paper. But the words, after hesitant fits and starts, flow across the paper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bleed Out Ink

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for this kink meme prompt, which hit me so hard. " _[They aren't just stories. They're the most extended eulogy of all time.](http://shkinkmeme.livejournal.com/9516.html?thread=22750764#t22750764)_ "

Of course, things were always going to be different after he married Mary. 

Just not … different like this. 

Mary is understanding, at first. She had a very good grasp on how close he and Holmes wer- had been. Maybe not understanding but sympathetic, and when there isn't really much of a honeymoon, or much romance, or much sex, or much … anything, really, she is patient. He just can't. Holmes would want him to get on with his life (well, maybe), but he just can't. 

He didn't understand himself, just how much of his life _was_ Holmes. 

Mary is less understanding as time passes and nothing changes, except, perhaps, that the depth of his grief becomes greater, as if he is uncovering it bit by bit rather than all at once. As if it is too great to be taken on in one moment. He rallies; begins making rounds again, brings in income, talks with her over dinner and smiles at her and on rare occasions does more in bed than sleep, and she seems mollified. He does all these things, and they are no more than mere distractions, barely chipping away at the hole he is carrying around within his chest. 

He doesn't remember what it is that prompted him the first time, that guided him to sit down set pen to paper. But the words, after hesitant fits and starts, flow across the paper. Pour from him, the memories so vivid he is hardly aware of writing at all, only that when he stops, when he looks up and realizes that he is not at Baker Street, that Holmes is not in the room, in the house, in – only that when he stops, and becomes aware of the here and now, does the pain hit him all over again, like a stab in the gut, a slow bleeder. It _hurts_. 

But there is relief, all the same. And so he writes. And writes. And writes. He fills volume after volume with his memories. Mary isn't especially pleased at his shift in obsessions, but she holds her peace. One day, he comes across her reading from one of those journals. He isn't sure if he really wants to ask her about it, but when she sets it aside, her eyes are suspiciously bright. She grasps his hand, a little too tightly. "Oh, John," she says, and there is a world of sadness in her voice. He gathers her in, and they stand, holding each other, half clinging to each other. 

"I thought he'd never die," he tells her. "I thought-" His voice catches, his throat tightening. Mary shakes her head against his chest. "I never thought I'd truly _lose_ him," and maybe a tear or two catch in Mary's hair. 

"You should publish them," she says. "Let him live on in your writing." 

He considers it. Turns the idea over in his head. 

*

The publishers are more than eager for his stories. Watson feels a bit uncertain at times, how Holmes would have regarded this … frenzy for the details of his life. Amused, of course, to some degree, but disturbed as well? Holmes could be so careless of others' thoughts, yet Watson cannot shake the fear that Holmes would be quietly horrified. 

He fears more that Holmes would have been horrified not by the reveal of his methodology or cases or odd private details, but by the tone of Watson's writing. Watson is aware he is not just writing stories; each story is a memorial, an eulogy, an ode to the incomparable man that was Sherlock Holmes. No one could read these stories and fail to see the boundless affection Watson feels for Holmes, despite his careful edits. 

These are love letters. 

He keeps the best – or worst – of them tucked away where not even Mary will find them. The chronicles of all the moments he thought there was almost, almost something more, the things he holds onto so desperately, so guiltily. 

Sometimes he write not in memoriam, but in loss, in anger, writes until his hands cramps and the page is a mere blur through his burning eyes, until the tears make it impossible to write any more, though the words continue to spill out of his mind. He never publishes those papers, never even allows them to see the light of day; they are half incoherent rants, pleas for understanding, one sided discussions with a ghost. Why, he asks Holmes, again and again and again. Why were you such a fool? Why didn't you win? Why did you leave me? 

Why couldn't I have loved you before it was too late? 

Sometimes, he cannot bear to see Mary. She is nothing more than a reminder of all that she is not, at those time, a reminder of who is not there. He hides from her, holes up in his study and lets himself lose his footing in the memories that await him. 

He tries to apologize to Mary for these lapses, but she will have none of it. "You loved him," she tells him once. He shakes his head, but she continues one. "Anyone who knew you two could see the regard you had for each other, John. You don't need to apologize to me." 

_No,_ he thinks, but the person he wants to apologize to is not there. 

*

Gradually, it eases. 

He writes, and finds himself smiling in fond memory more often than holding himself to stillness against the pain remembrance brings. He commits to the pages more of Holmes' calm moments, his humor, his quirks. They find favor with his publishers, the ones he allows into the public eye, the ones that are not too revealing, though he's come to realize his eye for that is flawed. They find favor with Mary, always his first reader, surprise smiles out of her as well. Sadness, to his surprise; "I was only beginning to know him," she says to him. "I wish these were things I could have discovered for myself." But smiles as well. 

They find favor within his own mind, and it eases. 

*

They wanted it first, of course. The dramatic story of Holmes' demise, the thrill of an arch nemesis, the chase, the fall. It's still present in the public's mind when he first approaches his publishers, and they want to capture attention in the quickest possible way. 

He refuses. He's not ready for that, not ready to have the current state of being etched as sharply onto paper as his memories are, on the same plane. He can barely stand to think about it, much less rehash those last moments, the ways Holmes' eyes had closed to him, the long frozen moment when he could not breath, could not blink, could not believe, cold air swirling around and no sound but the roaring and no sight as his own eyes close and - 

He wonders, sometimes, the worst of times, if Holmes ever opened his eyes again, if he fell through darkness, if he kept his last sight that of John Watson, helpless to save him. If Holmes screamed as he fell, screamed as he hit the water, the rocks. If Holmes breathed out into the air rushing past him, weightless for a few moments of time, and felt as though he could fly. 

They wanted the sensationalism of it, and he will not give it to them. 

But now – he sits down one day, unthinking, unprepared for the words that begin to seep from his mind. He is startled, stops, hands frozen over the keys, waits for the blinding agony to overtake him. 

It doesn't. 

He feels merely quiet. Still. _Yes_ , some part of him says, and he agrees. It is time. He has given Sherlock Holmes a fitting memorial, an eulogy long to be remembered; now it is time for goodbye. 

It is his last love letter to Holmes, his last plea for the universe to restore his clever detective to him. He edits it out, of course, before he passes this long awaited manuscript onto his publishers, but it is there, all the same, words on paper and no longer trapped in his mind. It has been years since he began this endeavor; it has taken years, to be ready for this. 

"Are you sure?" Mary asks him, when he tells her it is done. 

"Yes," he tells her, as he has been told himself, and feels a curious lightness in a part of him where he has felt as though nothing can possibly fill the hole Holmes had left behind. He is ready to look forward, now. 

_Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes._


End file.
